The present invention relates to communications between nonfaulty non-adjacent nodes in a processing network, and more particularly, to private communications between nonfaulty non-adjacent digital processors connected by at least three vertex-disjoint data paths, one of which may be faulty.
It is often necessary or desirable in communication networks to maintain security between network nodes. Given two non-adjacent nonfaulty processor nodes connected by at least three vertex-disjoint (i.e. no common intermediate path nodes) paths or wires, the ability to secretly exchange a message should not be compromised by eavesdropping. Nor should communications be degraded or compromised by a faulty line or node.
Although prior secrecy methods employing cryptography keys, cipher algorithms and predealt information are known, an efficient protocol, requiring no pre-dealt keys and relying on no computation-theoretic assumptions, would be preferable. And, as indicated, fault tolerance should be provided.